Rural areas are left without doctors and nurses, their number decreased to 23% for 2022

2024-02-14 08:06:00, Sociale CNA

Rural areas are left without doctors and nurses, their number decreased to 23%

The number of primary care doctors and nurses, which includes health centers, ambulances and polyclinics, continues to decrease. The shortage of medical staff is higher in rural areas.

From the health coverage data for the years 2019-2022 of the decision on the expanded national immigration profile for the years 2019-2022, it results that in the primary service the highest decline is among family doctors.

Near the primary service of urban areas for 2022, 814 doctors were employed. Their number decreased by 3% compared to the previous year. The number of nurses was 3,693 in 2022. Compared to 2021, their number increased by 31%.

While in the primary service of rural areas, the number of doctors for 2022 was 637. Compared to the previous year, their number decreased by 4. While the number of nurses for 2022 decreased by 23%.

According to the strategy, internal migration is the main factor that has influenced the configuration of medical staff and access to services.

"The internal migration of the population, mainly from rural areas to urban areas, has inevitably influenced the change in the ratio of doctors and nurses to the population of these areas. The most pronounced decline is in the grouping of doctors from rural areas, also due to the same tendency that the population of doctors shows to move towards urban areas", the decision is quoted.

Family doctors claim that the decline in medical staff is creating difficulties in obtaining services, especially for retirees, as the elderly and chronically ill cannot receive reimbursable prescriptions that are initially signed by a family doctor.

"Family medicine is capillary and means service as close as possible to the patient. Absent family doctors, patients do not receive proper and timely service. It is about chronic patients who want constant care. The quality of service delivery decreases, patients do not manage to be provided with reimbursement drugs or appropriate recommendations in time.

All the more, these shortages of family doctors are felt in virus situations like the one we are going through. The overload of family doctors with patients or in some cases and the lack of a doctor in that area causes problems for the sick who will necessarily go to the emergency room of municipal hospitals or the QSUT", says Elizabeta Musta, family doctor at the Health Center of Kamza.

For the year 2022, according to INSTAT data, about 8.4 million visits by doctors were made near health centers, ambulances and polyclinics. The number of medical visits increased by 3.5% compared to the previous year.

In health centers for 2022, according to INSTAT data, the highest number of visits was for patients over 14 years old. The number of visits for this category of patients reached 2.8 million visits. While the number of medical visits for patients over 60 years old reached 1.7 million visits.

Even in the ambulance, the highest number of visits made by doctors for 2022 was for patients over the age of 14 with 1.4 million visits respectively. The number of visits for patients over 60 years old reached 692 thousand visits./ Monitor magazine